Title: FACTORS AFFECTING THE USE OF GOOGLE SEARCH ENGINE ACROSS DIFFERENT EMERGING TECHNOLOGICAL DEVICES: IMPLICATIONS FOR DESIGN OF SEARCH SOLUTIONS.

Authors:
Agbo, G. C. & Uzoegwu, R. C.

Abstract: Abstract This study focused on the factors affecting the use of Google search engine across different emerging technological devices and its implications for the design of search solutions. The design of the study was survey research design. Three research questions and three null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study.The population for this study was3712 respondents which comprised of 3010 students and 702 Lecturers from University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The lecturers and students were chosen because they make use of Google search engine for research purposes. To constitute the sample, 140 lecturers and 301 students were selected using simple random sampling technique. A structured questionnaire of 21 items was developed for the purpose of data collection. Three experts validated the instrument and Cronbach alpha method was used to determine the reliability co-efficient which yielded 0.81. Data collected were analyzed using mean and standard to answer research questions and independent sample t-test statistic to test the null hypothesis. From the analysis of the research questions, it was found that different factors affect the use of Google search engine across different emerging technological devices such as quality of the system/interface, quality of the information stored in the system and level of satisfaction derived by the user in the daily use of the system. The findings of the study also revealed that there was no significant difference (p>0.05) among the respondents on the factors affecting the use of Google search engine across different emerging technology devices. Based on these findings, it was recommended among others that search engine companies are to censure the inclusion of relevant keyword for easy search, uploading contents that solve user‟s problems, making search engine responsive across different devices and gaining backlinks to the search engine, so as to improve the convenience and efficiency of using search engines across different emerging technological devices.

Publication Date: 2018-12-06